


Shoreline

by antioedipus



Category: Vampire Knight (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25803940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antioedipus/pseuds/antioedipus
Summary: Three years later, and Zero lives by the ocean."They lie together on the couch, facing each other. “Why were you really mad at me?” she asks. Zero smiles.“You were wishy-washy and indecisive when in fact, it could have been this easy.” He replies. She frowns."How Yuuki brings him back.
Relationships: Cross Yuuki/Kiryuu Zero
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Shoreline

_“I can’t sleep, and I miss your face”_

_Phoebe Bridgers, “Demi Moore”_

Three years since it all came to an end. Zero thought he would be somewhere different by now. But here he is, in his small kitchen, drinking milk right out of the carton at 6 AM. The milk hits with a sour taste, and he spits it out on reflex. “Ew,” he mumbles. He rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth. _Gross,_ he thinks, his nose wrinkled. He looks out the kitchen window, at White Lily grazing in her field next to the goat he bought to keep her company. Beyond them, he sees the ocean. It is bright blue, and every time he sees it, Zero feels at peace.

Kaname threw his heart into the furnace, and Zero didn’t bother looking back. He moved to the coast, taking White Lily with him. He found a little farmhouse on the top of a hill, bought a goat and works at a diner. He hasn’t amounted to much, but he doesn’t mind it. He lives off his inheritance and investments. The job is just to keep him occupied.

His brother is long dead, Kaien is still running _that_ school, and Toga is still an ethics teacher. Zero dumps the sour milk down the sink before rinsing out the carton. When he left, Yuuki was pregnant with Kaname’s child. Toga says the baby is healthy, cute even. A girl. Zero doesn’t ask for a name or a picture. It’s bad enough that she chose the other guy; he doesn’t need to see their baby to know what he wasn’t her choice.

Three whole years. He is no longer the White Knight on Kaname’s chessboard. He left the entire vampire world behind: the hunting, the hatred, the petty machinations of councils jockeying for power. His body has adjusted to the blood tablets; as with any poison, immunity is possible through exposure. It’s funny, how the things that seemed like such a big deal now bore him. He’s a vampire. Whatever. The whole thing is an inconvenience instead of a reminder of who he used to be, what he was supposed to become.

For what it’s worth, he still carries that gun. Just in case. But he lives so far away from the chaos that he can’t ever fathom needing to use it. Toga visits, and Zero always greets him by asking if today is the day his old teacher finally shoots him. Toga always replies _not today_. Zero sometimes forgets that Toga, White Lily and the goat exist on a different plane then him. They will one day die, like his parents and baby brother.

Zero has the capacity to die, sure, but he doesn’t have to. Things become meaningless in the face of eternity. Time is what gives things meaning. It creates structure in the chaos of the universe. Time, like death, gives his relationships with Toga and White Lily significance. He throws the carton into the blue bin, and he walks out of his house to feed the animals and pick up the paper.

He isn’t a knight, but he still has his steed. Maybe he has a harder time letting go than he would like to admit. He exhales and stretches his arms. He opens the barn door and finds breakfast. He takes it out in two buckets and stands in the field to make sure each animal eats their food. He does a few chores. By the time he walks back into the house for breakfast, it is 9:30 AM. He peeks out the window, and he can see that the town has woken up. He might go in, get a few things. He doesn’t have work today, but he woke up this morning with the foreboding feeling that he was going to be dealing with something singularly unpleasant. He shakes his head and frowns. He needs to get outside.

He walks over to the kitchen and pulls out the tablets. Zero still eats human food, but he needs the blood tablets. He resents them. They are why he can’t just disappear. Zero can’t buy these at the grocery store; someone needs to bring them to him. He looks at the tablets in his hand, frowning. They still make him nauseous, so he takes them on an empty stomach.

The truth is that three years have passed, and _she_ still drives all of his decisions. He came out here to get away from Yuuki and her baby. Kaname made his life hell, and while he is gone, Zero has no interest in meeting his daughter. Zero just wants a boring, peaceful life, and he won’t get that if he sticks around the girl who chose her fucking _brother_ over him and said brother’s child. Being a pureblood vampire doesn’t absolve incest. On the other hand, Zero and Yuuki were adoptive siblings. His feelings for her aren’t brotherly. Sometimes, late at night, Zero will torment himself and ask the following question: out of the three of them, who is the biggest pervert?

Last night, he decided to give up on being better. Zero is just going to accept that he found love and satisfaction and safety in living with a horse and a goat. Time to give up on Yuuki. Forget her. Except his brain won’t let him. He explains it to Toga like this: he is not avoiding her, but he is not _not_ avoiding her. Toga puffed on his cigarette and told Zero to man up and deal with it. _I didn’t teach you to run away from your problems, coward_. Zero sometimes snaps back, but more often than not, he looks away. Toga is not wrong, but he is not _not_ wrong.

Zero is a coward, but sometimes the only solution is to run. So here he is, in a town by the sea where it is always hot. The girls wear bright swimsuits and linen and long wave-y hair. The last time he saw her, Yuuki’s hair was long. He wonders if she has cut it, like most moms do. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he spends a lot of time wondering what she is up to. He tells himself it’s because of everything he did to her: feeding from her, pushing her away when all she wanted to do was protect him, his promise to kill her when the truth came out that she too, is a vampire. It was all so stupid and misguided and hypocritical of him.

There are few things that are more inconvenient than hating yourself and someone coming along to explicitly challenge your worldview. She always got in the way of his self-loathing. Zero decides on five tablets and pulls out a glass. He throws the tablets into the cup, and turns on the sink, watching them dissolve into the water. These things are foul, but he has dealt with worse. He places the tip of his tongue under the glass, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He pinches his nose and tilts his head back, trying to think of anything but the horrible taste.

He keeps his eyes closed as he lowers the glass back to the counter and sighs. The human food is for nostalgia, but the blood pills are necessary. Disgusting, but essential to preventing him from attacking an innocent person. That’s what would happen if he tried to live without them. He wouldn’t die; he would _kill_. Worse, he would probably like it.

 _It’s not fair_. He opens his eyes and watches the ceiling fan spin. He listens to the ticking noise it makes. Tick, tick, tick. Like a clock, but worse.

He saw a girl come into the diner wearing Michael Kors branded bejeweled slides. They were ugly. He wonders what Yuuki would say about them. She would say something nice, because she is that kind of person, but he can’t imagine her ever wearing something like that. It makes him laugh, the idea of her, prim and proper Yuuki, in her frilly dresses and school uniforms, wearing rhinestones.

If asked, and he wouldn’t answer honestly, Zero misses Yuuki more than his dead family. This makes him feel ashamed. Who loves a girl more than their dead mother, and who finds this more shameful than being the stronger twin and a vampire? Zero looks out the window.

He still really loves her. It makes him feel powerless. That’s why he ran away. To reclaim some agency. Sure, he can be doomed to feel this way forever, but that doesn’t mean that he has to suffer. He sleeps around now, something he didn’t do when he was younger, even after he swore to end Yuuki’s life. Sex with other women doesn’t make him feel powerful but it does make him feel good. Like he could be loved.

He blinks lazily and turns when there is a knock at the door. He can’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t Toga or a random girl came by the house. Zero pads back to the door through the living room, and he opens the door without thinking about it. Three years have made him complacent.

He realizes this as it registers that it is none other than Yuuki standing before him. In cut-off shorts and a tank top, like she is a normal person. Her hair is short again. They blink at each other. He can tell that she wants to hug him. She was always an affectionate person that way. He sighs and steps back from the door.

They eye each other for a moment. She speaks first. “I found you,” she says softly.

“You found me.” He replies, his throat thick.

“I want to bring you home.” She says, walking through the door and back into his life.

“You’re already here,” he snaps. She presses her mouth into a line, but she doesn’t say anything. She slips her sandals off, and he resigns himself to a reunion he never wanted to have.

**

There few things that are truly inevitable. Birth, death, taxes. And hunger—for food, sex, love. Yuuki used to say she was hungry for water, and Zero would always snort and correct her. _You mean you’re thirsty_. He was always the smarter one.

Hunger makes you desperate; vampires know this better than most. If they didn’t to drink blood or its equivalent, they would descend into a hunger so maddening that they would kill anything for a fix. Hunger is inevitable, and Yuuki hungers for Zero more than anything. Perhaps it was unavoidable that he would leave the way he did, but she was always going to find him.

She still loves him. Perhaps she always did. Kaname thought so. Something Zero never really understood was how profoundly jealous Kaname was, knowing that he wasn’t Yuuki’s first in anything, not in the things that count.

Zero drank her blood first. Zero kissed her first. Zero had sex with her first. He always accused her of wanting Kaname more, but if he were paying attention, he would have seen how often she chose him. She clenches her jaw. She always feels guilty when she looks at Zero.

Guilty for hurting him. For failing to protect him. For choosing someone else when she wanted him all along.

She stands at the edge of the kitchen, watching him pour lemonade into a glass. He hasn’t said anything, besides the lemonade being tart. _The kind of sweet-sour that makes you pucker_ , he had said. Zero was always excellent at describing things, and he is doing a good job of acting like he wants her to be here. If she were any less selfish, she wouldn’t have come. But she is hungry and desperate, and it has been three years since she last saw him.

He hands her the glass. She tilts her head at him as she takes it from his hand. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Giving you lemonade.” He deadpans.

“I mean, what are you doing. Generally.” She takes a sip and her tongue curls. Zero sees, and for a moment, his mask slips. He smiles at her, and it makes a part of her glow.

“Generally,” he drawls, “I am trying to get my head unfucked.”

“Your head unfucked?” she asks. He nods and turns back to put the lemonade into the fridge. “I don’t follow,” she replies. He shrugs.

“You don’t have to.” Zero leans against the counter, looking at her. It makes her feel self-conscious.

He still has to consciously look for her flaws. Zero can’t see any, so he reminds himself that she had her brother’s daughter. But Zero is her adoptive brother, and he slept with her first, so who is the true abomination?

That’s the thing with trying to hate Yuuki. He always ends up hating himself instead. In a lot of ways, he is truly over it all. In others, he is still heavily invested in the past. It keeps him in an emotional limbo, where nothing is resolved. It’s just perpetual misery.

She looks up at him, innocent and well-meaning, which is the problem. Her intentions are always good, but her decisions always hurt him in the end. It’s a vicious cycle. “Is it just you?” she asks. He blinks.

“There isn’t anyone else,” he drawls. He smirks. “Did you come all the way out here to find out if I have a girlfriend?” Yuuki makes a humming noise, and he lets it slide.

“Sounds boring,” she replies.

“I have always been boring,” he shrugs. “Why are you really here?” he asks, voice soft.

“To bring you home,” she replies. He frowns.

“You’re standing in it.” He says, tapping his fingers on the underside of the counter. Zero has never been a particularly friendly guy, and she has always known this. But she never thought, after everything was said and done, that he would be cold with her.

“I miss you,” she says, “and honestly, I don’t think I have a home unless you’re there, beside me.” It’s how she feels, truthfully. Zero frowns.

“Did you _seriously_ come here to explain why you chose the other guy?” he asks. Yuuki frowns.

“No, that’s not why I’m here.” She says. It’s her truth, but he has always been quick on the uptake and he is able to think ten steps ahead of her.

“You chose him,” Zero says, hands on his hips. “You wanted him.” He knows he isn’t making that last part up. Yuuki’s crush wasn’t a secret, and every time he fed from her, or had sex with her, he could tell that he wasn’t the person she was thinking of.

Nonetheless, here they are, fighting over this because your first imprints on your soul even if you don’t want them to. Standing in his kitchen, they both realize that the thing is that they haven’t grown apart so much as they’ve just stayed the same. Their relationship can’t change if they stay stuck in the past.

“I regret it,” she says quietly, “I love my daughter, but I regret leaving you.” Zero makes a face.

“That’s a fucked up thing to say,” he says.

“How so?” she asks, not taking the bait. It infuriates him, how unintimidated she is by him. He doesn’t want to scare her; just make her give up and leave.

“Because sometimes it feels like you act like your life isn’t the direct result of your actions,” he says. “It was always ‘Kaname made me’ or ‘I am obligated to do this’ when the truth is that you wanted what you got, just not the way you intended. A family with Kaname. I’m not going back if all you want is for me to replace him.” The truth is that Zero wants her to want him as a particular, singular entity. “I mean, you chose your brother.”

“I didn’t know that,” she whispers. He snorts.

“He probably tampered with your memories,” Zero drawls, “and yet, you still _chose_ him.”

“He is the father of my child,” she replies, holding firm. So, Zero pushes forward.

“He is your brother.”

“I didn’t know,” she hisses. Contrary to his belief, she knows why they are here too.

“But then you did,” he lets out a cold laugh, “and you had a baby with him. Like ignorance changes what you did.”

“You are my adoptive brother,” Yuki replies, “and it didn’t stop us.” Of this fact, they are both keenly aware.

“And?” Zero asks, walking across the kitchen to her. She really has him there, but he wants her to do her worst. He is looking for a reason to hate her. Her lip trembles, the way it always does when she is mad.

“I think you are being critical because it is convenient for you.” She says, “I think you want to lord all my mistakes over me, when I have never said anything about the fact that you wanted to kill me for becoming a vampire…”

“I wanted something different for you!” He snaps.

“But this is who I am, and who you are too.” She looks into his eyes, and she can see the wheels turning in his head. She decides to take a chance and cut to the heart of the matter right now. “I can’t change what has happened, but we can be different,” she says softly, “we could be together.” She hopes it isn’t too late.

And it isn’t. Because it dawns on Zero that she came here not just to give him what he wanted. She wants the same thing too. He closes and opens his mouth, trying to connect words to all the thoughts buzzing in his head.

This really, really is not how he wanted this to go. “Fuck, that was so much worse than I thought it would be,” he huffs. Yuuki frowns, confused.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because,” he grits his teeth, “I’m tempted.” He can’t lie to her, so he doesn’t bother. She softens her stance and places her lemonade on the table beside her.

“I don’t want to be without you,” she says, “not anymore.” Zero nods.

“Okay.” It’s better than him kicking her out or telling her to go to hell. Neither of which she could imagine him actually doing, but he did threaten to kill her, once. Granted, she had become a vampire, the very beings he loathed, for he had become one after a vampire murdered his family, abducted his brother and turned him as a final act of cruelty.

A part of Yuuki knew he would never actually do it. Zero is softer than she is. “I can’t make you do anything. I can only ask.” She crosses her arms, hugging herself. “Come home.”

“Where is your daughter?” he asks. “Toga told me you had a girl.” Yuuki smiles.

“Ai is with Sayori for the weekend.” Yuuki drove all night to get here. She only stopped at a rest stop for a quick nap. She was completely exhausted, before she saw his face. It reignited something in her.

He closes the gap between them, and he comes home.

**

She still kisses the same. Tender, soft. She is the least aggressive person he knows. She presses her bare stomach to his, kissing his jaw while he is inside her. _I want to fuck you until you fall apart,_ he thinks. _Or until I fall apart, whichever comes first, but ideally, it will be at the same time._

This isn’t how he wanted it to go, but they are here now. He is on top of her, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands in his hair. It’s always been her. That is the truth, as he sighs into her mouth and she asks for him to come _closer_. She never asks for it harder or faster; just closer.

 _Closer_. Yuki doesn’t think that they have a closest. She will always want more, and he will always give it, and they will never be satisfied. You can’t eliminate hunger. You can only stave it off.

It is just the same but somehow more, now that they are on level ground and all the evil is gone and they don’t have to sneak around to be together. She holds his face in her hands and looks into his eyes. She nods at him, to let him know that it is okay to finish inside her. When he does, he buries himself so deep that he doesn’t know how he will ever part with her.

**

They lie together on the couch, facing each other. “Why were you really mad at me?” she asks. Zero smiles.

“You were wishy-washy and indecisive when in fact, it could have been this easy.” He replies. Yuuki frowns.

“You ran away,” she says, “you made it difficult.” He shrugs.

“You left first,” he whispers against her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs.

“I’m sorry too,” he replies. His hand runs up her side, and she smiles at him. It makes him soar.

_Closer_ , he thinks, _I can come so much closer_. And so, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> This popped into my head, I wrote it down. Zero deserved better. Feel free to leave a comment--I would love to hear what you think!


End file.
